Evaluation of sample pretreatment methods for analysis of polonium isotopes in herbal medicines

Herbal infusions like ayurvedic aristas are widely consumed by Indian population for good health. With increasing awareness about radiological assessment, an effort was made to assess the radioactivity concentration of naturally occurring radionuclides in herbal medicines. (210)Po is an important alpha particle emitter contributing to internal dose to man from ingestion. Though (210)Po can be spontaneously deposited on silver disk for alpha spectrometric measurements with less radiochemical step, great care has to be taken during the sample pretreatment step owing to the high volatility of polonium even at low temperatures. Aim of the study was to evaluate an appropriate sample pretreatment method for estimation of polonium in herbal medicines. (209)Po was used for radiochemical yield calculation. Conventional open vessel wet ashing, physical evaporation, freeze-drying and microwave digestion in a Teflon vessel were examined. The recovery ranged between 9 and 79%. The lowest recovery was obtained for the samples that were processed by open vessel digestion without any volume reduction. The recoveries were comparable for those samples that were freeze dried and subjected to HNO3 + HClO4 + H2O2 + HF acid digestion and microwave digested samples. (210)Po concentration in the samples ranged from 11.3 to 39.6 mBq/L.